The Henson Journals

[109]

Saturday, March 27th, 1920.

The Archdeacon accompanied Ella and me to Bridstow, where we lunched with Miss Armitage. Then I confirmed 21 candidates in the parish church, and dedicated a memorial Cross by the roadside. The weather was very threatening, but we did succeed in escaping the rain. A good number of the parishioners came together to tea in the vicarage, and I talked to a good many of them.

We got back to the Palace about 6 p.m., when Wynne–Willson and I went through the letters. Captain Goad arrived to stay the week–end. The Dean came to dinner. We had very interesting conversation. Captain Good gives a very bad account of the Greeks & Armenians, though he allows the truth of the horrible massacres of the latter. He holds strongly that the Sultan must remain in Constantinople, & that St Sophia must continue to be a mosque. It appears that the famous Church is situated in a district entirely inhabited by Turks, that there could be no regular use of it for Christian worship, & that even its occasional use would necessitate an elaborate organisation of military wardship. He thought that the Arabian state which we had set up had no promise of stability. I inquired what was the truth about the Vatican's alleged intriguing against Italy during the War. He admitted that the peace pronouncement of the Pope had had a very disintegrating effect on the Italian conscripts. He denied that the division in the Eastern side of the Adriatic was racial, & asserted that it was rather political. The Italians are the progressives, & the Yugo–Slavs the conservatives.

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